The Melchizedek Chronicles – Sometimes Humans just need a Good Laugh – Joy Lightens the Heart and Heightens the Hope!

Trump is Trump period.  Nobody ever said rich kids had to be normal.  Oftentimes you can tell who is rich by how many times they get sued and how few times they go to court.  Whatever happens to all those mysterious charges that magically disappear?

Rich people are always surrounded by a herd of wannabes from insiders to press corps to creeps just waiting for their implied access to the president to get cutoff so they can release their best-selling  exposé book about him and get rich themselves.

There must be over a hundred “insider” books on the two-plus years of the Trump presidency.  Not bad for a guy who prefers his own company over others.  How did they ever get so close?

Just think of the television series President Trump can write and produce after what he has been through, sure to be a ratings phenomenon and TV Reality Show smash hit, “Trump Through the Looking Glass!”   You best not be on his “not nice” list.

Conversely, the “Unilluminated” opponents of Trump are a cause for concern as well.  They are prisoners of their own foibles.  Claiming to be the champions of “we the people,” their agenda is quite simple (minded).  They only want what you’ve got, especially if you are very, very rich.

The good thing about America is it always survives, in spite of the people (politicians, press, lobbyists and special interests) polluting our nation’s capital.  They have been there forever, at least in terms of our young and fledgling nation.

Sometimes it seems as if the super-rich send their kids into public service to become presidents, congressmen or women, cabinet leaders and think-tank brains to keep them from screwing up the family business and legacy.

Well, this year the Democrats have amassed twenty-five and counting replacements for President Trump.  Imagine that, twenty-five.  Trouble is they have to survive a demolition derby called a primary where only one can survive.

Remember, this herd of presidential candidates spent the past two and a half years sharpening their fangs on Trump, and he gave them a good dose of practice.  Now they have one year until the National Democratic Convention to devour their own and be the last one standing to face the president.

Seems like those diversified Democrats wanted someone for everyone in the group photo of candidates.  From boy scouts to geriatrics, all colors of the rainbow, all variations of sexes and all pretty much grounded in a hatred of the president.

As for an agenda, how about Everything for Everybody regardless of the cost.  Give them whatever they want or need from cradle to grave.  Let the unborn future generations figure out how to pay for the largess of the political establishment of today. 

  
As for “we the people,” long ago they were wise to the wayward way of politicians, and the news media.  One day “we the people” will say “enough is enough” and take matters into their own hands.

Political agendas will be thrown on the scrapheap of history where they belong and the real needs of “we the people” will finally be addressed.  A generation of politicians will be replaced by real representatives of the people, elected to serve the people.

Journalists of the future will adhere to the principles of being objective, fair and truthful.  Since many today fail to live by those principles they will suffocate on their own sinking ratings and be dragged down into oblivion.

Yes, America will survive the often-bizarre antics of the politicians by turning you off, or hitting the pause button, then delete.  Poof, you are now relegated to being a constantly modified paragraph on Wikipedia under the category of ancient history.

When you really take time to stop and think about it, the only problems our own planet faces, Mother Earth, are caused by those dastardly hapless humans.  She did quite well until we showed up.

Something to think about…  

Observations from the Swamp #1 – Politics, Parties, Puppets and Peers

(An outsider’s view from inside)

In about twenty months America will again determine a course for the future and not a moment too soon.  Maybe we should all agree that this time we will support the president we elect and give him or her a chance to do some good for “we the people.”

What a novel idea indeed.  However, it sure looks like a painful path lies ahead to get there.

Think about the monumental task ahead for our president, whoever it may be.  First, they have to traverse the minefield called the primary election, and win.  Only two will be left standing of the nearly thirty candidates of the Democrats and Republicans.  Then they must get elected president a couple of months later.

On the one side we have the Republican incumbent Donald Trump, who thinks he should have been immortalized as the newest American Action Hero and given a Marvel comic Book Series.

The other side are two dozen or more Democrats of all stripes, sizes, genders and bias, who are promoting everything to everyone regardless of the cost, the consequence, or even the possibility for approval.  In truth,  they are all chasing Joe Biden.

Of course, reporting on the election circus is done by the highly suspect news media and I use that description with much trepidation.  Once upon a time there was a definable, properly sourced, and credible news media.  It was objective, gave both sides to every story, and very seldom were they rewarded with a byline – which means getting credit for a story for those too young to remember.

Today objective and unbiased stories are nearly impossible to find.  Today reporters want to be the story, the stars of the Virtual Internet News era, which means they tell you what to think.

Fortunately, the vast majority of people place little credibility in the news media.  That is a fact that can easily be sourced.  Look at the latest Nielsen TV ratings and note viewership has fallen off the cliff.  Gallop polls show the News Media credibility is fighting Congress for the least trusted of American institutions.

In the fifty-four years I have been eligible to vote there have been eleven presidents, Kennedy – Johnson – Nixon – Ford – Carter – Reagan – Bush Sr – Clinton – Bush Jr – Obama – Trump.  Six Republicans and five Democrats.

Only four served a full two terms.  Three smoked pot as if that is a big deal.  Six graduated from the Ivy League which has now controlled the American Presidency for thirty straight years, and that might be a big deal.

As for me, I am the embodiment of diversity.  For eight years I was a Democrat, a Republican for eighteen years, and a Registered Independent going on thirty years.  From my perspective, it was hard to tell the difference between the two parties, other than their meaningless political platforms.

Now I want to apologize to my native home state of Iowa, safely located in the Midwest, the American heartland.  You are under invasion from the ever-growing herd of Democratic candidates and will be for the next nineteen months.

The avalanche of presidential candidates comes on the heels of the last presidential election where nearly twenty candidates competed.  Oh, and they bring with them those dastardly fake news crews, political pundits and professional politicians.

You see poor Iowa is host to the first major vote in the presidential primary election, the legendary Iowa caucuses.  For the past two years since the last presidential election Iowa has been inundated with five hundred-year floods, quite an anomaly for a natural disaster.  It was also inundated by people running for president in 2016 and now they are off and running for the 2020 campaign.

Just the two major parties have now offered nearly fifty candidates, with over thirty for the 2020 slugfest, to win the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of those good people and unsuspecting Iowa Hayseeds.  That means there have been nearly as many candidates in just two elections as the total number of presidents in our nation’s history.

It really was a swamp!

People I met from around the world always marveled at all the choices available to American consumers, but fifty presidential candidates defy logic.  Bear in mind that does not include the third-party radical fringe candidates also on the ballot.

American voters have to find their way through a lot of smoke and fog to pick the right person.  Iowans will be the first to make their mark in our election Olympics and fear not, they will be up to the task.

When caucus day comes Monday, February 3^rd, 2020 it will be the first indication of who actual voters are backing, not who the overly ambitious and biased reporters and anchors are telling them to back.

I am betting on those Hayseeds to set the record straight for our national debate.  Will it be the anti-establishment Action Hero Trump or the consummate establishment Bobblehead Biden?  Stay tuned…

The Melchizedek Chronicles - What to do about Trump! What is the right thing to do about Trump! Part II

Now that the world, the Democrats, and anti-Trump forces have been betrayed by their own supposed hero, Robert Mueller, with the release of the long-awaited Mueller Report, what next?

The Investigation…

Nearly $25 million

2,800 subpoenas

500 witnesses

40 FBI agents

21 lawyers

The media coverage of the investigation

“Russiagate” has been a news media obsession since Trump’s victory in November 2016. The nonpartisan Tyndall Report pegged the total amount of time devoted to the story on the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC last year at 332 minutes.

According to a count by the Republican National Committee released Sunday, The Post, The New York Times, CNN.com and MSNBC.com have written a combined 8,507 articles mentioning the special counsel’s investigation.  The cable news networks, particularly CNN and MSNBC, have added hundreds of hours of discussion about the topic as well.

The Mysterious Steele Dossier on Trump

Deep in the background of the two and one-half-year evolvement and completion of the Mueller investigation, dating back to the 2016 campaign for the presidency, there was the highly secret concocting of a mysterious dossier trashing Donald Trump that would become the most notorious counter-intelligent and opposition research project ever undertaken in an American presidential election.  

In August 2015, NBCUniversal made a $200 million equity investment in Buzzfeed.  Along with plans to hire more journalists to build a more prominent "investigative" unit.

In October 2016, Buzzfeed raised $200 million from Comcast TV and movie arm NBCUniversal, at a valuation of roughly $1.7 billion.  Altogether, Comcast and subsidiary NBCUniversal own about a third of Buzzfeed.

Why?

The Steele dossier on Trump

Mother Jones news reported on the existence of the elusive dossier behind the federal investigation of the Trump campaign and Democratic obsession to get Trump and invalidate the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump on October 31, 2016.

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump was in two distinct operations, each with a different client. The first research operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon, a Republican organization doing background on the GOP primary candidates.

The second operation, from April 2016 to December 2016, was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Only the second operation involved the foreign research that produced the Trump dossier.

At least for portions of the months of April and May 2016, the Washington Free Beacon and the Hillary Clinton Campaign/DNC were independently both clients of Fusion GPS.

Note NBCUniversal made substantial purchases of Buzzfeed in August of 2015 and October of 2016.

At some point news media began hearing rumors about the dossier in the middle of 2016 as reported in Mother Jones October 31, 2016.  However, funding information and how the complete dossier was given to the FBI and news media were unknown.

It was not until the end of 2018 that factual information came forth.  The new revelations were contained in an opinion authored by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro December 19, 2018 in a District Court case involving Buzzfeed.

As stated by the Judge, an associate of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain shared with Buzzfeed News a copy of the unverified, salacious opposition research dossier alleging that Russians had compromising material on President Trump, according to a bombshell federal court filing December 19, 2018.

McCain had strenuously denied being the source for Buzzfeed after it published the entire dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

McCain has acknowledged giving the dossier to the FBI. But, until the opinion of the Judge was released, it remained a mystery what role, if any, his associates might have played in the dossier leaking to the media shortly afterwards.

In November 2016, according to the filing, McCain sent Kramer, a director at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, to London to meet with Steele.

McCain had learned from Sir Andrew Wood, the former British Ambassador to Russia, that Steele had collected damaging information about Trump, according to the filing. Wood was an informal adviser to Orbis, which was retained by Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.

On Nov. 28, 2016, Kramer met with Steele and later obtained copies of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, the filing states. Kramer then met with Buzzfeed reporter Ken Bensinger on Dec. 29, 2016 at the McCain Institute.

There, "Kramer reviewed with Bensinger what he knew about the dossier and explained that he took the allegations seriously." Then, Kramer showed Bensinger the dossier and purportedly informed him that “some of the information was unverified."

Bensinger left his meeting "with copies of all seventeen memos" authored by Steele, and promptly took the compiled dossier to Mark Schoofs, Buzzfeed’s senior editor in charge of investigative reporting.

Buzzfeed published the entire 35-page dossier under the title “These Reports Allege Trump has Deep Ties to Russia” on January 10, 2017, just before Trump was sworn into office on January 20, 2017.

It was this revelation that led to the Comey firing and the appointment of a special prosecutor.  The history and mystery of the dossier that was never proven accurate is the key question to what happened during Trump's presidency to date.

Justice Department and Congressional Investigations needed

Justice Department and Congressional investigations are needed to finish cleaning up the mess that has plagued the president and denied the people the full attention of their duly elected president.

Many questions remain concerning the development, funding sources, distribution and public release of the dossier as well as the internal actions within the Obama Justice Department and Administration, including those of Attorney General Loretta Lynch, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, CIA Director John O. Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director James Comey, along with various Justice Department senior executives, a number of whom have been fired or retired.  

There are always consequences to actions that were intended to mislead the public, slant the news, and punish the innocent and those consequences are on the horizon.  The same is true when politicians violated their oath to the Constitution and ethics which may snare many Democratic senators and congressmen, along with Democratic presidential candidates for president in 2020.

Finally, there is the absolutely horrendous efforts by the news media including Internet news producers and aggregators to blatantly drive the president out of office.  It was never the intent of our Founding Fathers that the first amendment, free speech and protection of the press, should be used to shield news media from unlawful, unethical, immoral and co-conspiratorial practices intended to discriminate against the object of their stories.

If there is any involvement by the media in the unlawful manipulation of the agencies of the government or the public news media resulting in the Mueller investigation the courts should strip the media of protection against liability under the first amendment.  Beyond that, any news organization that violated the Professional Ethical Standards for Journalism should be stripped of White House and Federal government clearance and credentials to all government activities.

Let the President do what he was elected by the people to do so hope can be restored in our nation, the real needs of the people can be met, the abuses and over-reach of the government can be eliminated, and we the people can get what we expect out of our national government.  The time for division must be put behind us and the leadership in solving national and world problems must be our future.  America deserves the chance to prove what makes us better than any other nation in the world, creativity, pride, compassion, care and equality for all.

CPT Flashback - Ten Years ago CPT Predicts Obama will Win Presidency - A Day for the Ages - Lincoln's Dream Fulfilled by Obama

It has been ten years almost to the day that the bitterly fought Democratic primary in 2008 changed, and suddenly Hillary Clinton faced the prospect of defeat.  On Super Tuesday, March 4, the Clinton machine got their first inkling something was amiss when her march to the presidency failed to crush the young upstart Barack Obama.

By May 6 when the North Carolina and Indiana primaries took place, it was Hillary's last stand.  She needed significant wins to stop the Obama momentum.  Instead she barely won Indiana by 2 percent and was crushed in North Carolina by Obama.

On June 3rd Hillary officially withdrew from the race.  Obama was nominated at the 2008 Democratic Convention on August 28 and won the historic race for president on November 4, 2008.  Finally, on January 20, 2009 Barack Obama became the first African American president in American history.

May 8 of the primary year the Coltons Point Times declared Obama would win the presidency in seven months, before he was even nominated by the Democrats (August 28) and while Hillary was still fighting for the presidential nomination.   The following articles ran May 8, 2008 and November 6, 2008 in the Coltons Point Times with the prediction and the proof.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

AN OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA

As you stand on the threshold of history 148 years after a fellow Illinois favorite son named Abraham Lincoln did I would appreciate a moment of your time to remind you of the expectations we Americans have of our leader.

Image by Coltons Point Times

When the dust has settled from your very trying primary campaign, the confetti has been swept away from the boisterous national conventions and the final tally certified from the general election we have elected a president who instantly becomes the most powerful person in the world.

At that point in time you assume the mantle as the leader of all Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents and non-voters alike. You will lead a nation that is the citadel of freedom, the defender of human rights, the provider of equal opportunity, and yes the melting pot of the world where diverse people, cultures, ethnic backgrounds, religions, philosophies and politics can flourish. No other place in the world can make such a claim.

When you take the Oath of Office as the President of the United States you will become the 44th person in history to accept the responsibility inherent in the office. All Americans will be watching you, and so will all of the people of the world. The path you choose to follow as president will determine how many of the 300 million Americans will stand firmly behind you.

It won’t be easy but it does not have to be hard if you realize as so few politicians do that you, as our chosen leader, represent the heart and soul of what is good about the United States.

As a people far removed from the egos and thirst for power so often seen in our nation’s capital we long for a leader who cares, who possesses genuine empathy and compassion, who will create an administration dedicated to helping people and solving problems rather than perpetuating a bureaucracy, and who will bring about long overdue meaningful change.

We want a leader willing to learn about our needs rather than tell us what is best for us. Someone who can accept responsibility and admit mistakes and then you will always receive our support and forgiveness.

We are a people whose Declaration of Independence and Constitution made clear that we are One Nation Under God while distinguishing the difference between God and religion and we hope and pray you will not shrink from the rights and responsibilities inherent in being One Nation Under God and the inalienable rights we enjoy.

Our nation was founded out of love of freedom, respect for God and justice for all. The path has been bumpy at times but our strength comes from the will of the people to never lose sight of our goals. If you lead the people down that path you will discover the secret of our nation, the power of the people.

We the people in defense of our country and other nations are willing to sacrifice our sons, our daughters and ourselves to preserve our precious freedom and way of life and we have proven it throughout our history. We are the most charitable and forgiving people on Earth who will never hesitate to help another in times of need. No nation on Earth comes close to the unselfishness of Americans to volunteer their time, donate their money and offer their prayers for the good of mankind.

We expect you Mr. Obama to be yourself and Americans will stand behind you. Be America’s First Family looking out for all families in America and you will earn our respect. Show your devotion to your wife and children so the world will know what is important in America and you will earn our trust. Let the First Lady be an advocate for the forgotten needs of our people and your children a model for the love so desperately needed everywhere and you will earn our support.

Be our heart and soul, the heart and soul of all Americans, and you will take your rightful place in history as one of our greatest presidents of all time, not just the first African American to be president. We expect a lot, but we are willing to give a lot in return. Together we can return America to its rightful position as the model and leader of the world. Together we can demonstrate the strength of our conviction, the power of our will, and the value of our freedom to a world in need of hope.

God Speed,

Your fellow Americans

     Wednesday, November 05, 2008

A Day For The Ages - Obama & Lincoln

Image by Coltons Point Times

THE DREAM FULFILLED

Abraham Lincoln - 16th President

Barack Obama - 44th President

Just 23 days after he takes office as the 44th President, on February 12, 2009, Barack Obama will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, a fellow president from Illinois whose dream that all people are free was fulfilled with the historic election of Obama. Lincoln sacrificed his life so that Obama could serve. Here they are both sitting before the Illinois Statehouse where both began historic political careers.  Image created by The Coltons Point Times.